The Lost Cut- Alternate versions of movies - Page 2

"That would be rather difficult, since often editing decisions are made well before the final animation happens. Jason"

Jason, The Black Cauldron was mostly completed when Eisner and Katzenberg took over. When Katzenberg was hired, he screened the films then in production, and he took it upon himself to order changes in Cauldron. Roy Disney called him personally after receiving complaints. "What are you doing?" Roy asked. "Trying to fix this thing." Katzenberg replied.

In a story that is now legendary in animation circles regarding Cauldron, as Katzenberg sat down to start editing the film, he asked where the coverage was for the scene he wanted to work on.

I bet you even he gets a chuckle out of that one, today, since hand-drawn animation doesn't have coverage.

Anyway, Katzenberg eventually trimmed (reportedly) two minutes of animation, including some shots of skeletal violence in the last reel. Because the cuts came so late in the production, the score for the film had already been completed, and thus, Katzenberg's edits in the climactic scenes can be "heard", since they interrupt music cues and cymbal crashes. If you have the CD of the score, you can also become acquainted with the original version of the "Cauldron-Born" sequence, making the edits even more noticeable when you finally see the film.

The Black Cauldron is by no means a great film (or even a good film), but I have affection for it and some day I'd like to see the version the Disney artists had prepared before Mr. Katzenberg decided to edit the film. I have suspicions that the film was edited in an effort to try to win a G rating, since I've read claims by one historian that Katzenberg's changes were an effort to "relieve the darkness" of the film.

Best to you, Jason

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Other films I'd like to see uncut:

Intolerance
The Lost World (and no, not the Spielberg film)
Lost Horizon
Metropolis

David Blackwell,

If it is floating about, then it's news to Barker. As late as last year, he was still trying to get Fox to look for the cut footage in their vaults. I think maybe you're mistaken.

I remember reading in the Guinness Book of World Records about a film called * * * * that was made some years back that the original cut lasted 24 hours - and believe me, when the Guinness Book of World Records mentions something of that nature, it's hard to be anything but fact. The film was then edited down into a 90+ minute form and retitled The Loves of Ondine. That would have to be the mother of all lost cuts, next to Greed!

I hope we see the extended cut of Waterworld. Their was good stuff put back in.

I liked the ending where.... Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Bis Ans Ende Der Welt (Until the End of the World) is one of the greatest SciFi releases ever in it's 6 hour form, which you can now get from in a box set (issued in Italy). But, the US version, at slightly over 2 hrs (I believe, 2hrs, 12 minutes) is so botched up that it's hard to follow and doesn't have the same consistent narrative.

A five-minute version of this disaster would seem like a "VERY VERY long version" to me...

There is supposed to be a longer and better cut of Tony Scott's movie Revenge that once existed. I remember seeing either a HBO first look special or trailer or something that included a fight on a moving train that wasn't put into the film.

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I must reawaken this thread with another "lost cut" I'd love to see:

Death Becomes Her

The film originally had a different ending as well as Tracey Ullman playing a bartender in a couple of other scenes as well. As the film exists today, Ullman was completely cut out of it. I would kill to see that version with the original ending and a few other scenes that never made it to the screen...all thanks to a test screening.

For more info about it, try tracking down Laurent Bouzereau's book "The Cutting Room Floor," which has a detailed description about what was cut out of the film, as well as a number of other widely known films as well.

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There are several different versions of "The Thief and the Cobbler" out there.

The only official ones are the Miramax and Majestic Films cuts. The Miramax version is available in R1 as a VHS-master P&S DVD (it's a Panavision film). In R3, there was a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD but it's out of print. It's pretty lousy, though, since it's from a cinema print - it has splices, poor contrast, lots of dirt and scratches, and too much filtering.

Then, there's an out of print R4 Australian DVD that has the longer Majestic Films cut (it's roughly 80 minutes long). But it's pan and scan, not to mention heavily cropped on the top and bottom. It at least has a less altered soundtrack (the Thief is still silent and Phido still has Donald Pleasance's squawks).

There's a bootleg on eMule of the workprint that looks very good (first gen PAL VHS). However, a lot of stuff was properly finished by Richard Williams Studios after the workprint was bootlegged.

Someone is putting together a new re-edit that reconstructs the workprint by substituting footage from the 16x9 R3 Miramax cut, using most of the workprint audio and video whenever needed, and centers the P&S Australian DVD in places for better clarity. Since it's a bootleg, I won't post details here, but you can AIM me since PM's are down.

Disney really needs to consider restoring and finishing this film. I've shown a lot of people the workprint and they absolutely love it.

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There is a slightly longer version of "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" that U.S. audiences didn't get to see back in 1986-87. When the film was released in overseas theaters, there was a four-minute prologue recapping the events of STII and STIII with narration from Captain Kirk (William Shatner) discussing the events of the films. It also included some re-edited music from Leonard Rosenman's score, along with cues not heard in the U.S. version of the film. The title of the film was also different, as it was released overseas as "The Voyage Home: Star Trek IV". Other than the overseas prologue and the title reversal, the remainder of the film is the same as was released in U.S. theaters.

This prologue was never issued on the special edition DVD release back in 2003. TrekWeb.com, however, does have a description of that rarely seen prologue to the film.

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isn't there supposingly a cut of the movie "hero" that is about 30 minutes longer then the oriignal 96 minute cut. I know, there are extended versions, but they are only like 8 or 9 minutes longer.

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Alternative cut to the original 1978 DAWN OF THE DEAD which Ken Foree (Peter) and Gaylen Ross(Francine) end their lives. Peter, trapped in a storage room, commits suicide by shooting himself in the head and Francine, waiting for him at the helicopter, decides to decapitate herself on the helicopter blades. Film ends on a very pessimistic sour note. Romero swears this alternative ending was shot, but it has yet to surface.



Ken Foree decides to take the easy way out in the alternative ending.


Test shot of Fran's messy death scene.

- Colton

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I sure would like to see the original cut of the Big Chill with the flashback at the end.

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Alot of these movies being talked about on here, have been bootlegged for years while others are hard to come by or seen at all!

Question is would studios re-release films on DVD in two versions?

Considering DVD's true potential is rarely touched upon, i think this is a fair and just debate and argument. Its said all great films have more than one version of them in existance so why aren't the alternate cuts of films released to the fans and collectors of films if the demand or request to see them on DVD is there by the curious movie lovers.

Few DVD's even have rough cuts. I think one that i have in my collection 'Highlander End Game' has its rough cut on the DVD itself! There might be others out there with the same feature on DVD besides the regular theatrical cut, but they must be very few in number, at least to my knowledge.

Far as rough cuts, alternate or original planned versions of movies go. I'll love to see the following

Stargate in its original 3 hour cut, Event Horizon, Star Wars 1977 rough cut, Batman Forever, Stephen King's 'Needful Things' the 3 hour cut, 1982's The Thing (alternate ending), Apocalypse Now, Back To The Future Part 2, Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (with all its deleted scenes put back in), Star Trek Nemesis and the version of Final Destination where the kid was decapitate by a helicoptor blade! (if the rumors of that film are true?)

I'd be a happy man if all that were released on deluxe special edition DVD's tomorrow!

Richard Donner's Superman 2 SE is already spoken for judging by all the recent news of the recut and 14 disc DVD boxset of Superman by year's end!

Adam Sha

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Stargate has a three hour version no one has seen.

Yup indeed, i love to see this movie released as such!

Adam Sha

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I just finished reading the superb biography of Ava Gardner, by Lee Server. In it he details the filming of Bhowani Junction, directed by George Cukor. The film Cukor delivered was a 2 hour 30 minute film, he believed Ava Gardner would win a Best Actress Oscar nomination. The studio (and producer Pandro Berman) rejected the cut and deleted much of the footage of Ava with her Indian lover (including a very daring, erotic scene in which Ava simulated her reaction to a specific sexual act performed on her.) Consequently other scenes had to be re-shot, and the narrative was harmed. The film as eventually released came in at 110 minutes.

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For Dawn of the Dead, according to IMDB, the alternate ending was filmed, but the effects shot wasn't. You could probably fake it these days, though.

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2001: A Space Odyssey was cut by 20 minutes or so a couple of days after the first screening. Ditto Playtime by Jaques Tati (in fact, I think Paytime was cut by even more).

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High Spirits:

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Funny you mention High Spirits Rob. I caught the theatrical cut (the one Neil Jordan disowns) last week on MGM HD (the first time I've ever watched it) and I really liked it. Yes, it's stupid, but God help me, I had a ball with it.

I would also like to see the film as Neil Jordan intended us to see it.

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How about Spookies (1987)? It's a low budget 80's horror movie that most people remember for the "Spider-Woman" scenes. It was created from another finished movie called Twisted Souls. Half of the movie was cut out and then new scenes were shot to created Spookies.

Spookies (1987)

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Interesting seeing this thread reborn since DVD has been kind enough to give us some extended cuts since this thread began.

Both Donner's Superman II and Helgeland's Payback have seen the light of day. Always interesting to see these things, though I invariably end up preferring the theatrical cut.

The one film I think I would prefer in its original form would be Gangs of New York. I thought the theatrical cut had problems but verged on greatness. The original could be a true classic. Unfortunately, it just seems like Scorsese will not revisit this. The Blue Ray announcement disappointed me again - we're not getting squat. I will continue to hope...

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The extended 180-minute TV version of Waterworld (mentioned near the beginning of this thread) still has not seen the light of day on home video in thirteen years...rewatching it recently, I was struck by how much deeper and richer it makes the film, both in terms of plot, as well as in characterization.

Universal released it around a year or eighteen months ago on Blu-Ray, but it was the 2 hour and 15 minute theatrical cut; Costner apparently insisted on trimming down Kevin Reynolds's director's cut by 45 minutes -- ABC broadcast Reynolds's version back in 1998 over two nights, and the result is a far superior film.

Considering that Reynolds and Costner buried the hatchet several years ago, and are friends once again, you'd think either one or the both of them working on a special edition release for this movie after all this time would be a no-brainer. So far, it's still "bare-bones" only, though the DTS track is quite good.